Question

[ak]

I get into some of arguement with a friend yesterday, because I was saying that some of the 'choices' we make being survivors are not so much as 'choice', but what we do because what we learned. It is not that I am saying we are not responsible or have to be held for account of what we do when we do wrong things. But that some things, like coping ways or even sometime acting out things, they are not so much chioce, but affect of what is done before. (I do not know I am making sense of what I am trying to say).

My friend say that he is responsible for things he done when he is teenager, that it is choices he make because he make them, he do not see it is just he is doing same thigns he learn as child. And he say, that is stupid, and that he must choose it, because abuse of child is not abuse of adult, and he still not stop it as adult until now, because person who abuse him, try again even this year.

I do not know sure how to ask, or what to ask. But, if someone is abused by a person since they are very small child, don't it seem that even as grownup, that there is power of abuser on them, and abuse still can continue? If it is sstill same person, isn't it still abuse? My friend, I think he do not want to think this person harm him so much as it did, and think if it is his own fault, then it is some better? I am not sure, I do not understand. Just because you are older and bigger, it do not mean it is not the same thign it always was. I am confused.

Andrei

 

[reality2k4]

Acting out is not a choice, it is conditioning of the mind, most abused boys act out in different ways. While it is dangerous to do some things "acting out", it may be less dangerous to act out in different ways.

I would not blame anybody for acting out, because it is their way of dealing with it, just like numbing with drugs or alcohol and porn etc.

The best way is to deal with it by finding therapy and also talking about it,

ste

 

[Rustam]

I understand what you are saying Andrei and I think you are right. Yes when we become adults and to an extent teens we are responsible for our choices but those choices are informed by our histories and as such are not real freely taken choices. If we dont find ways to unlearn what we were taught as kids then those behaviours can continue into adulthood and we can feel just as helpless in the face of abuse as kids even though we are not.

Peter